Stigmata, Or Something Like It.

It bled a little, but after a little H2o2 (and that’s Hydrogen peroxide to you civilians) the wound seemed fine without any sort of bandage, and I continued the move, with the help of the Hip Hop Moving Corporation. (That was not a joke.)

The following day it had scabbed over nicely, and I went about my business, pausing occasionally, when putting my arm through a sweater or watching myself turn on a light or tap, to recognize my own sick running joke, a hilarious moving-house war-wound, probably of the self-inflicted variety.

Recap: The move had been seeming — prior to my unintentional suicide attempt – so horrid and daunting that I comedically thought later on perhaps it had been a rationally attempted subconscious move on the part of my wrist. “Fuck this,” it was saying “I could be giving myself Carpal Tunnel booking an expedia.ca trip to Tampa.” I feel it imperative to explain — my wrist had recently been cordially invited to meet up with some friends in St Petersburg — silly moving had gotten in the way yet again, and so, my sullen wrist, pouty and malnourished of potential sunny sunshine and the detrimental trip to Disney World (particularly after dour and grey London for five weeks), was plotting its way through the lugging of boxes, the labeling of garbage bags, biding its time, until it finally s n a p p e d , and as I looked down in the midst of moving madness, I saw a slow and steady stream of blood – my wrist’s only form of tears or protest.

I didn’t think much about it in the days that followed, preferring instead to host elaborate dinner parties and enjoying the magnitude of counterspace that had been recently inhabited by the myriad of vegetables that accompany me everywhere. The wrist was seeming really nothing more than a scratch at this point, and furthermore, since the move I had been treating it really well. I mean, like, 5-star treatment this wrist was getting. You wanna go down to the fancy gym, wrist, maybe pump a little iron? 5 lbs too heavy for you, wrist? Please, let me get the 3-pounders. No, no clumsy handbag for you to worry yourself about – It’s the shoulder bag today. Embarrassment. Steam rooms. L’Occitanne hand salve. SALVE.

Yeah.

A few days passed. You would think that my wrist would have graciously — if a little sulkily — accepted my attempts at reparations, wouldn’t you? That’s what you or I would have done, right? Sucked it up, maybe offered to make a cup of tea or something. Not find some new means of complaining or making life fucking difficult.

In the middle of nowhere, on no occasion and for no particular reason whatsoever, I looked down at my hand – maybe it was out of habit, my war wound enabling phantom pains or some psychological hilarity again, post-traumatic-move-stress or the like – and blood had drenched the sleeve of my shirt. The mild scratch had somehow become a geyser-gushing gash with no affront to its vanity or personality to speak of, no namecalling, no physical contact with anything else. There had been NO REASON FOR UPSET.

I stared at the opening and marveled as there was no bone, or veins or anything to be seen once the blood was washed away and bandaged lovingly by a friend who hilariously also happened to be a physician. It was one of those good bandages, the fabric kind that you can wear through wind or sleet or minus-40 degree weather. Although I was shocked by this seemingly random occurrence, I was well taken care of, and quieted with solace in the notion that “these things happen.”

The following day, having forgotten entirely about the incident due to the medical and cosmetic marvel of the band-aid’s Caucasian skinlike colouring, I make my way to the gym again, and after my workout, hit the showers. The bandage somehow, miraculously removes itself. My first thoughts range through random social neuroses to sheer unavoided/able terror as I worry that the wound will once again spew blood all over the antiseptic and completely unaffordable tilework in the fitness club. I look down, and the wound is a scar. No blood. No scab. No memory of its own attempt at suicide.